Ventures

About Ventures
Why Ventures?
Our approach
The 4 days
Alumni
Contact us

Common Purpose Ventures connect future leaders, across the world, to tackle challenges which are common and compelling, and big (enough to be worth the effort) and small (enough to be grasped).

Ventures encourage participants to work in new directions to develop innovative approaches to new (and old) problems, which is why the names of all our Ventures mean "direction" in different languages. Participants will present their findings to many different audiences over the year following the Venture.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's message to the participants of the first Dishaa Venture, January 2011

dirctions

Dishaa

Find out more about our Venture that connects the UK and India

Itijah

Find out more about our Venture that connects cities in Europe and the Arab world.

Dao Xiang

Find out more about our Venture that connects London and Shanghai

Kompas

Find out more about our Venture that connects five Central Eastern European countries

Bringing cities, countries and leaders together

Ventures will:

Build links - at a very practical level - between future leaders across the world.
Help those leaders to work more effectively together and identify new approaches to complex problems.
Develop broader leaders who are more effective at working across old and new boundaries

Lord Stern on how Common Purpose Ventures bring leaders together

Ventures help participants to:

Grow as leaders by exposing them to people who lead differently
Broaden and deepen their knowledge by showing them how another city, country or culture work
Develop their cross cultural awareness by throwing them into a difficult task, with a very diverse group, under pressure
Build new networks by giving them access to participants and contributors they might otherwise never meet
Stretch their analytical and creative skills by exposing them to a new approach to innovation
Develop their influencing skills by putting them in front of senior decision makers to present their findings

Please read a Ventures alumni's impact statement haven taken part in the inaugural Itijah Venture in April 2012.

Setting and tackling the challenge

The Venture approach

An Advisory Group of established leaders from the Venture cities, regions or countries identify a common and compelling challenge for each Venture which is both big (enough to be worth the effort) and small (enough to be grasped), be it in health or transport; dealing with frustrated youth or quality in education; about internal and external disconnects; about building upwards or outwards; or struggling with water or energy. The Venture participants, who are a group of leaders from across all sectors and backgrounds, then work together over four days and come up with innovative solutions.

Over a four day intervention, participants will be guided through the process of creative innovation, and immersed into the issues of the challenge. Ventures will follow a four stage process to enable them to tackle the challenge:

dishaa_diagram
Using the challenge as a framework, participants will explore the different elements that need to come together to enable society to build new models. Participants will look at how to innovate, the modelling process and prototyping, learning skills and techniques to help them understand and unlock how creative innovation happens.

The first Dishaa Venture, held in Pune, India in early 2011, featured a series of interventions which included exploring the process of innovation, off-site immersion visits to organisations relevant to the challenge, conversations with expert advisers, exercises to better understand the modelling and prototyping of new systems, and time for reflection. On the final afternoon, the participants presented their solutions to a panel of invited experts and Advisory Group members.

What happens on a Common Purpose Venture?

The four days in more detail, using the first Dishaa Venture (held in Pune, India) as an example

Day one: Introduction to each other, the challenge and the process of innovation
The participant group discussed what they bring to the challenge (heart surgery at $1,000 - what has to change in how society operates and innovates to make this a reality?), the insights gained from stakeholder interviews, and considered leadership 'blind spots' - what prevents us from innovating? They learned more about the challenge and the process of innovation from external contributors and each other.

Day two: Immersion in the challenge
Participants spent the day exploring the different aspects of the challenge - they met leading experts and innovators knowledgeable in the field, and visited organisations to gain first-hand experience and begin to form their first ideas about how they could tackle the challenge.

Day three: The process of innovation
Through external contributors and group exercises the participants practiced innovation and were introduced to the principles that guide the creation of new ideas and the prototypes that flow from them.

Day four: Creating solutions
Participants worked in teams to refine and develop their ideas. Through consultations with their fellow participants, and research (on the internet or conducted over the phone) they developed their solutions to present to the Venture Advisory Group and invited guests knowledgeable in the field of healthcare.

Throughout the four days

During the week, participants worked in small diverse teams as well as participating in the larger group sessions. It is in these smaller, more intimate sessions that they learn the importance of diversity in creating new ideas. They build bridges between nations and sectors, find areas of common interest to work on together and forge relationships that will continue to develop well beyond the end of the Venture.

After the Venture

Participants work up, publish and then present their ideas to policy makers and leaders in the different cities. They then work on their own ideas, individually and collectively, to build connections across the world.

Read the report from the fist Dishaa Venture.

Connecting Venture participants across the world

Venture Alumni

As Ventures develop, alumni will benefit from connections with an ever-growing international community.

Alumni will continue to work on the solutions to the challenges they have come up with on their ventures, taking advantage of support from mentors in will help them hone and refine their ideas, before publishing a report and presenting their solutions to policy makers around the world.

Venture Alumni will have the opportunity to take part in Deep Dives, which will take Venture alumni to new cities to investigate how they work, continuing their learning in cities around the world, deepening their understanding of different cultures and countries and expanding their global network.